


to all the boys i've hated before

by apastron



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, M/M, jihoon/ong/jisung are brothers, lots of delicious panicked mutual pining that they dont know is mutual, maknae line + ong + woon are all in senior year if it's unclear, minor past!winkhwi, side nielsung i guess, tatbilb au KINDA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 07:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17039609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apastron/pseuds/apastron
Summary: Jihoon deals with his grudges by writing letters to all the boys who have ever annoyed him. But when these letters accidentally get sent, one to long-term rival Park Woojin, he finds himself with a whole new problem to deal with.





	to all the boys i've hated before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littleheavens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleheavens/gifts).



> prompt:
> 
> I would love a "To all the boys I've hated before" AU, in which jihoon writes a letter to all the boys he has ever hated or considered his 'enemy' and he writes a particularly petty one to woojin bc of something that happened in elementary school. The letters get sent and the rest is history!

Jihoon is not a petty person. He just sometimes gets irrationally annoyed by very trivial inconveniences and often plans spiteful revenge. But he’s definitely not petty.

The letters started in kindergarten. Jihoon loved to play in the sandpit, usually by himself since none of the other kids were that bothered about it, which was perfect for him. It meant he could build whatever he wanted, live out whichever far-fetched storyline had popped into his head that day. He’d even begun work on a giant castle, feeling an immense sense of pride whenever the other children gathered round to stare as his creation began to take shape. He’d come to see the sandpit as his own, so much so that when he arrived one day and ran out to put the finishing touches to his castle, what he saw stopped him in his tracks. There was a stranger, a new boy that he’d never seen before, sitting in his sandpit. But the very worst thing was Jihoon’s castle, or what was left of it, lying crushed under the boy’s left foot. Jihoon was so upset that he flew at the boy, screaming and throwing sand in his face, until he was dragged away by his mother and three members of staff. He was sent home, and when he arrived the next day, the sandpit had been replaced by a seesaw. So during craft time that day he’d written the very first letter. The spelling and grammar were questionable, but it was the sentiment that mattered. And the sentiment was one of anger, betrayal, and a longing for his beloved sandpit that the evil Lai Guanlin had caused him to lose. Then he’d put the letter in a box under his bed and forgotten about it.

That could have been the end of the story. But of course, it wasn’t.

 

**—✦—**

 

“One of these days you’re gonna get out of bed on time.”

Jihoon’s face was buried in the pillow so he couldn’t see who was talking, but of course he still knew. His older brother Jisung was the self-appointed head of the household, with their mother working early until late, he’d always taken it upon himself to make sure Jihoon and his twin brother Seongwu had been fully taken care of.

“When are you leaving for college again?” Jihoon groaned.

“You won’t be saying that when there’s no one here to make sure you’re at school on time,” Jisung retorted, throwing a cushion at Jihoon’s slumbering form. “This is you and Seongwu’s final year of high school,” he continued. “You need to take it seriously.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Jihoon mumbled, pulling the covers over his head. This didn’t last long before Jisung yanked them away from him, exposing him to the cold air of the room.

“Up,” Jisung demanded shortly. “Or you won’t get pancakes.”

If anything was going to motivate Jihoon, it was food. He reluctantly swung himself out of bed and followed his nose to the kitchen. When he got there Seongwu was already sitting at the table, fully dressed and reading a textbook that wasn’t even required for his subjects this year. This was typical of Jihoon’s twin, non-identical and older by 14 minutes, and different in hundreds of other ways. But they’d always got on well, and even now Seongwu looked up at Jihoon with a bright smile.

“There’s some syrup left for you. I made sure Jisung didn’t use it all.”

“Thanks bro,” he said, pulling pancakes off the plate and dousing them in syrup, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Jisung rolled his eyes as he breezed into the room, grabbing his bag from the side.

“Enjoy your tooth cavities,” he said. “I’m going out with Daniel. Seongwu, I’m trusting you to get this one to school in one piece,” ruffling Jihoon’s hair as he walked past. “See you guys this evening. Oh and Jihoon, I forgot to mention I posted those letters for you. Okay, bye,” he said, disappearing out of the room.

Jihoon frowned as he took a bite of his pancakes. He didn’t know what letters Jisung meant, but his brother was always several steps ahead of everyone else. It was probably something that Jihoon hadn’t even known needed to be sent. He finished off his breakfast and got ready at the last minute as always, letting Seongwu be the one to drive them in their shared Toyota while complaining that Jihoon was going to make him late for algebra.

“I’m still not convinced we’re actually related,” Jihoon mumbled. “Is there any way mum could have faked giving birth to two babies at the same time?”

Seongwu jumped straight out after parking, throwing the keys at Jihoon and telling him to lock the car behind him. As he watched his brother disappear into the throng of people entering through the front doors of the school, he sighed. He knew that Jisung had been right, as he usually was. This was his final year of high school and he wanted to make an effort. Even if it was only to beat Woojin to the top of the class.

This reminded Jihoon of his letters, that indeed hadn’t stopped after that first one to Guanlin, not after one lunchtime in elementary school. But it wasn’t just any old lunchtime, because they’d been serving pizza, and this only happened a few times a year. Whispers would pass around the school fast as wildfire, and they often ran out within the first 5 minutes of lunch so it always turned into a competition to see who could get there first. Jihoon had managed to run from English class on the other side of the school to join the line just in time to claim himself a slice. He’d walked through the canteen with it, bathing in the jealous glares of every student who hadn’t quite made it in time. He’d almost reached his seat when it happened. Park Woojin, always an unstoppable force of energy and volume, had come barrelling into the canteen with a group of his friends. Jihoon didn’t even had time to react. Woojin collided with him at terminal velocity, sending the precious pizza whirling across the room before landing topping side down in the middle of the floor. Jihoon had just stared, first at the slice of cheesy goodness he’d worked so hard for, then at the boy who’d caused him to lose it. Woojin just flashed an annoyingly bright smile, said “Oops. Sorry,” and then dashed off to rejoin his friends.

It was in that moment he remembered the letter he’d written to Guanlin, and so it was that Park Woojin became the subject of the second letter, mourning the pizza he’d lost and cursing the soggy salad he’d had to have instead. He found it quite amusing to then address the letter to Woojin as if he was really going to send it, using the yearbook to add addresses to both his and Guanlin’s. The letter then went back into the box and under the bed.

Maybe this incident alone wouldn’t have been enough to provoke Jihoon’s vendetta. It was every other time Woojin continued to annoy him throughout their time at elementary, and then high school. The main issue was the fact they consistently ended up in the same class, both academically gifted and therefore always vying for top spot. Jihoon’s main skills lay in the arts and humanities, a lover of history and drama, whereas Woojin excelled at sciences and sports, topping the class in chemistry and PE. There was no separating them in terms of achievements, and even the teachers had come to learn how close their rivalry truly was. To make the situation worse Woojin was best friends with Seongwu, having met him through the school’s dance team, which meant he was frequently round at Jihoon’s house. This was always Jihoon’s cue to make himself scarce, usually going round to Jinyoung’s, but sometimes he didn’t escape in time and was forced into interaction with his rival.

There was more, small moments where Jihoon knew Woojin was purposefully getting on his nerves. There was the time in high school when Jihoon had started a gaming club, but as soon as he began to put up posters, Woojin had announced he was starting one too. And of course, he offered a free lunch of fried chicken and ramen, so Jihoon’s club became a lost cause. Then there was the time Woojin came into the restaurant where Jihoon worked and proceeded to make Jihoon’s evening a nightmare, demanding anything and everything that he could get away with, knowing Jihoon couldn’t complain about it. And of course, there was the additional fact Woojin had always been just slightly taller, which Jihoon was convinced he was doing on purpose.

Deciding he’d done enough thinking about Park Woojin for one day, Jihoon finally got out of the car and made his way into the school. He scanned the corridors for Jinyoung, hoping to find his best friend in one of the usual places they hung out. However, a text soon revealed to him Jinyoung wasn’t coming in today because he was ill. Jihoon sighed. He didn’t have many people in this school who would bother to hang out with him as it was, and when Jinyoung wasn’t there that number decreased to approximately zero.

As he started to head in the direction of his first class, he spotted Daehwi by his locker. He hesitated for a second. His relationship with Daehwi was complicated. They’d been good friends since the start of high school, had dated for a short time last year, and had split at the end of junior year when Daehwi decided he wanted to focus on his studies instead of dating. It had been an affable break up, with them deciding to stay friends, but Jihoon would be lying to say he didn’t still have some feelings for Daehwi. In fact at the time he’d ended it, Jihoon had been so upset and bitter that Daehwi chose school over him, he’d written him a letter. It was the least aggressive letter of them all, filled with laments of loneliness and grievances, but there was enough resentment in there to make it count towards the collection. But it had slowly got easier, and he’d been able to spend time with Daehwi as a friend without thinking too much about what had been left behind.

He walked over to Daehwi now, glad to have finally found someone to talk to. But as he approached, he wasn’t greeted by the usual smile he would expect from the boy who was always cheerful. Instead Daehwi just stared at him apprehensively, looking like he wasn’t sure what to say.

“What’s up?” Jihoon asked brightly, trying to pretend he hadn’t noticed Daehwi’s facial expression.

Daehwi continued his unreadable stare. “I’m surprised you’re even talking to me.”

Jihoon frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Daehwi’s eyes moved away, towards his open locker. He pulled out a textbook, and Jihoon noticed he was gripping the cover tightly. “I didn’t realise you’d taken the break-up that hard, Jihoon,” he said finally, meeting his eyes once again. “But I can’t apologise, because I don’t think I did anything wrong. It would have been more unfair for me to keep stringing you along when I knew it was best for both of us to end it. I just don’t know why it took you so long to tell me this.”

Jihoon began to panic. Where had Daehwi got all this from? The only person that knew how he felt was Jinyoung, and although he was friends with Daehwi he knew he wouldn’t have spilled his secret. Then there was Seongwu, who Jihoon rarely discussed relationship problems with, but there was something about being twins that meant they always knew each other better than they knew about themselves. Maybe he’d said something to Daehwi?

He wasn’t sure how to get out of this, but he knew he didn’t want to admit to anything because he really did enjoy spending time with Daehwi. So he decided a few little white lies wouldn’t hurt. “Listen, I don’t know who’s spoken to you, but I promise my feelings are all in the past. I was upset at the time yes, but now I know it was the right decision. And I’ve been happy being friends.”

Daehwi shook his head. “You know, if this was a spur of the moment thing and you regret it, that’s fine. We can forget about it. But you know full well I’m not looking for a relationship right now, and I don’t appreciate being made to feel guilty about it.”

Now Jihoon really didn’t understand. “If what was a spur of the moment?”

Daehwi opened the front cover of the textbook he’d picked up and pulled out a small blue envelope. And Jihoon’s heart stopped.

It was the letter. The one he’d written to Daehwi that first night after the break-up, addressed neatly and even stamped, which definitely wasn’t his doing. Jihoon couldn’t take his eyes away, even though Daehwi was clearly waiting for him to speak, a thousand scenarios of how that letter had ended up in his ex-boyfriend’s hand running through his head.

“I”- he began, stammering as he searched for words that were nowhere to be found. He suddenly realised how this would look to Daehwi, receiving this letter five months after their break-up with no warning. It would look like Jihoon had been lying through his teeth, faking friendship when really he just wanted to get back together.

He opened his mouth to explain, but the bell rang at the worst possible moment, and people started to surge past them trying to get to their lessons.

“Daehwi, I can explain,” he attempted, but Daehwi just shook his head, eyes shining with a hurt that Jihoon had never seen, or wanted to see, before. Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Jihoon in despair.

The crowd quickly swept him up and he let it, unable to choose his own walking direction right now. He just wanted to get to class and sit down before he passed out in the hallway. His mind was running at a hundred miles an hour, coming back again and again to the letter and how on earth Daehwi had received it. Jihoon hadn’t even touched the box under his bed since he’d written that letter, piling it on top of the rest.

 _The rest._ That hadn’t even occurred to him until now. The other four letters in the box, all addressed and ready to go. If Daehwi’s had made it into the post, what if they had too?

It was at that moment he rounded the corner and was faced with Park Woojin, standing by the entrance to his classroom surrounded by a throng of his friends, a blue envelope in his hand.

 

**—✦—**

 

The thing about Jihoon and Woojin’s rivalry was that it had always been unspoken. Ever since the pizza incident, throughout their years of competition, they’d barely said more than a few words to each other. But this letter changed everything. Sure, because it had been written so long ago it didn’t capture the full extent of the situation between them, but it was enough to bring into the open something which had never been acknowledged. And now here was Jihoon sitting at the front of biology class, Woojin’s eyes boring into the back of his head.

He tried to push his problems out of his mind to focus on the lesson, but this was easier said than done when he was being taught by the recipient of the third letter. And from the way he was looking at him, Jihoon was pretty sure he’d checked his post before leaving the house this morning.

Mr Hwang, the head of biology, was the most feared teacher in the school. He struck terror into the hearts of freshmen and maintained the same strict govern over his pupils until the day they graduated. It had always been fine for Woojin, and anyone else whose natural ability lay in science. But for Jihoon, it wasn’t quite the same story. He’d struggled with the subject his whole life, and Mr Hwang had tormented him relentlessly for it.

So at the end of his freshman year, when finals came around, Jihoon worked and he worked hard. Almost every waking moment was spent on osmosis, evolution, and his least favourite, genetics. He’d gone into the exam with a well-earned confidence, feeling like he couldn’t be any more prepared if he’d tried.

The exam had started well, Jihoon breezing through the questions with ease. He was just getting stuck into a particularly complicated question on ecosystems when he became aware that the two boys in front of him were passing notes. _They’re not winning any awards for subtlety,_ Jihoon had thought, as he caught sight of the entire answer to question 12 written blatantly on the page. He ignored them, getting on with what he was doing. He didn’t have time to concern himself with cheaters.

That was, until they missed each other’s hand and the note fell, bouncing right under Jihoon’s chair. One of them risked a pointed look back at Jihoon, and a nod of the head towards the piece of paper. Jihoon quickly averted his eyes. There was no way he was gonna get involved in this. At that moment Mr Hwang, invigilating the exam and prowling like a fox searching for prey, turned down their row. Jihoon hurried to try and kick the note away from him before it could be seen, but he wasn’t fast enough. He was caught with it under his foot, paraded out of the exam in front of everyone, and despite many protests that the note was nothing to do with him, had his entire paper discounted. This was just enough to drop him down into second place overall in their year; second place below Woojin. And it was this incident that had earned Mr Hwang his letter.

It was Jihoon’s bad luck that had then landed him in Mr Hwang’s class for the next three years following this, but where the teacher had previously just been annoyed that Jihoon was bad at the subject, there was now an added grudge against him for the cheating incident. And so Jihoon’s biology class had been hell for his entire high school life, and this letter was unlikely to make the situation any better.

Mr Hwang was in the middle of explaining the project they would be doing that term, writing a range of different topics they could choose to research and present up on the board.

“And of course because I’m evil, I’m going to make you do it in pairs,” he announced, eliciting a groan from the class. “But because I’m still human, I’ll let you choose your partner.”

Jihoon smiled to himself, excited for this project. Jinyoung was really good at biology, so he was confident theirs would be the best. He pulled out his phone to message his best friend and ask him what topic he wanted to claim.

“Jihoon,” Mr Hwang’s voice called out, everyone turning to look at the same time. “Who’s your partner?”

Jihoon’s felt his ears flush red. “Sir. I’ll pair with Bae Jinyoung. But he’s off sick today.”

Mr Hwang had dangerous eyes, the sort that could be warm and kind if he liked you, but switch to cold and unforgiving if he didn’t. And it was the latter Jihoon found himself facing now. Then there was the slightest hint of a smile, the corner of Mr Hwang’s mouth just curling up slightly as he stared. Then he spoke.

“Woojin. Can you come over here please?”

The class was silent, Jihoon’s heart pounding so loudly against his ribs he was sure they could all hear it. Woojin, who’d already paired up with his friend Hyungseop, frowned in confusion but did as he was told.

“You two will be working together,” he said, and there was a murmur from around the room. Because as unspoken as Jihoon and Woojin’s rivalry had always been, everyone knew about it. The students, the teachers, even the canteen staff seemed to know of the feud existing between them. No teacher had ever been crazy enough to put them in a group together, knowing there would be blood if they did.

Until now.

Jihoon opened his mouth to protest, but Mr Hwang shot him a warning look. “Hopefully,” he said slowly, deliberately holding Jihoon’s eyes, “this might teach you a lesson.”

Jihoon didn’t know what kind of punishment he could be facing if he resisted this, but whatever it was would undoubtedly wreck his near perfect GPA. So he clamped his lips together, determined to look anywhere except in Woojin’s direction. Maybe if he didn’t acknowledge this was happening, his rival would simply fade out of existence.

Unfortunately this didn’t happen, and when he turned around that annoying big head was still looking back at him.

“Look, I don’t want this any more than you do,” Woojin mumbled. “Especially after you sent me an entire letter to tell me just how much you hate me. But I’m not bombing this project just because we were paired together. So I suggest we meet in the library during our free periods and get started on it, okay?”

Jihoon nodded, noting the comment about the letter but not in the mood to explain right now, just glad Woojin seemed to be willing to cooperate on this. “My next one is second period tomorrow,” he said.

“Me too,” Woojin replied, and scribbled it down onto his hand. “See you then, I guess.”

The lesson ended and Woojin went off with his friends, not sparing Jihoon even a glance, which suited him fine. The less they had to interact during this project the better.

He immediately got out his phone to text Jinyoung and tell him about the biology project disaster but also about the whole letter situation in general. He knew that out of everyone, his best friend would know what to do.

But as he was typing out the message he felt someone tap his shoulder, and turned around to see Lai Guanlin standing there, holding a blue envelope with a look on his face like a kicked puppy.

“Guanlin, I”- he began.

“I’m really sorry, Jihoon,” Guanlin said quietly, and although Jihoon didn’t know him well, the sincerity in his voice was evident. “I didn’t know it affected you this much. To be honest I don’t even remember it.”

Jihoon opened his mouth to explain the situation but it was at that moment it hit him, and he remembered. Jisung leaving the house this morning, the casual departing remark he’d thrown over his shoulder.

_Oh and Jihoon, I forgot to mention I posted those letters for you._

It was a completely Jisung thing to do. He’d have been tidying up Jihoon’s room, found the box, maybe even with its lid askew from the countless times Jihoon had pushed it around to hide Christmas presents behind it, and he’d have assumed that Jihoon had just been too lazy to post them. So he’d have sealed the envelopes carefully, put stamps on them, and dropped them off at the post office on his way to work the previous day. And now here they all were, in the hands of their not-so-rightful owners, one of whom was still staring at Jihoon with more confusion than the previous hurt, waiting for an explanation that didn’t seem to be coming.

“Um, so listen, I am sorry and everything,” Guanlin said, “but I just gotta say, your handwriting is atrocious. It looks like a three-year old’s.”

 

**—✦—**

 

The shadow of the letters continued to hang over Jihoon for the rest of the week. Mr Hwang tortured him in biology class, Guanlin shot him confused glances, Daehwi avoided him altogether. Woojin, at least, was acting the way he always had done; with pure resentment and derision. They spent their free periods together, reading up on their topic and starting to cobble disjointed facts together into some form of presentation, but neither of them enjoyed it. They would sit as far apart as possible, pushing a piece of paper backwards and forwards across the table for each other to check on the progress. Jihoon was more than happy with this, painfully aware that the letter had made an already tense relationship into an unbearable one.

He also spent some time considering what to do about the fifth letter. Jihoon remembered it well, as it was possibly the one that still made him angriest to this day.

During the summer before junior year, with teachers already pressuring them to decide on their future careers, Jihoon had managed to land a few weeks working in a popular graphics company, run by renowned designer Kim Jaehwan, which he’d thought would set him up perfectly for him dream job. He’d loved it at first, feeling that his ideas were really listened to and appreciated even by the most senior staff members. They welcomed him like one of their own, even letting him have input into some of their bigger commissions, so he could see his work out there in the real world. One day towards the end of his time there, Jaehwan had announced they’d been asked to redesign a logo for one of the most popular social media apps, and that he wanted all the designers to submit their own ideas for him to choose the best one. Not only would their design be submitted to the company, they would also be promoted to the role of Lead Designer, just one step beneath Jaehwan himself. Jihoon had been desperate to do well, staying up through the night to perfect his design, waking up with his head on the keyboard and Photoshop still open on the screen. He submitted his design, waiting nervously for the day Jaehwan would announce the winner. When the decision had finally been made, and everyone crammed into the conference room to hear the result, Jihoon had never been more elated than the moment he saw his design displayed on the screen. And then, mere seconds later, he’d never been more bewildered than the moment he saw someone else’s name written underneath it.

 _Who the hell is Jeong Sewoon?_ he thought, looking for who he should talk to to correct this mistake. Then he saw Jaehwan shaking someone’s hand, a man he recognised as Jaehwan’s best friend from high school who until this moment had been sitting in the lower ranks of the company, and everything suddenly made sense. Jaehwan had designed this entire thing for Sewoon to win, to get his best friend’s name out there and move him up in the company. His plan all along had been to take the best design and stick Sewoon’s name on it. Jihoon felt like an icy spike had been driven into his chest.

He’d told his brothers, desperate to try and fight it, but they both told him that Jaehwan’s legal team would be far too powerful for them to come against. They could go to the press, maybe get a story out of it, but people would forget. Jisung had hugged him and Seongwu had told him how good the design was, but that didn’t help the pang in Jihoon’s heart whenever he’d unlocked his phone and seen the stolen design looking back at him. He’d deleted the app not long afterwards.

So yes, perhaps Jaehwan’s had been the most justified letter out of all of them. But it hadn’t made Jihoon feel any better to write it, almost to the extent he’d nearly thrown it away. And he’d certainly never intended Jaehwan to read it.

Maybe he won’t, he thought to himself. He probably gets loads of mail, he must have secretaries to sort through it and pass on the important stuff. They’ll just throw it away.

So he’d forgotten about it, choosing to focus on the four that had already caused him problems rather than making more for himself.

That was, until the next week when a letter arrived for him. The address was handwritten in a script he didn’t recognise, and the envelope sealed with wax imprinted with KJH.

Who still uses wax to seal letters? he thought to himself as he tore the paper open, sliding out the letter inside. And as he read, his mouth fell open.

 

_Dear Jihoon,_

_Thank you for your letter last week, which I received with fond memories of what a great worker you were. However, it greatly troubled me to read the grievances it contained. I can assure you I do not tolerate corrupt behaviour of any kind, especially where my business is concerned. I immediately contacted Jeong Sewoon to clarify the situation, and was horrified when he brazenly admitted to using my computer to move your submission into his own file. I can only offer my deepest apologies, Jihoon. Sewoon was fired with immediate effect, and the rights to the logo will be transferred instantly into your name. I also enclose a cheque for the royalties that rightfully belong to you. I only hope you can forgive this horrendous oversight, and I extend an invitation for you to come and meet with me face to face, with the hope to discuss you rejoining our company full-time._

_With deep regrets and best wishes,_

_Kim Jaehwan_

 

After the initial shock, he sunk into waves of guilt. He’d blamed Jaehwan for all this time, even going so far as to slander the company online, when his boss had actually been unaware of the situation all along. And the fact he could respond so nicely to the blunt fierceness of Jihoon’s original letter made him feel even worse.

That’s when the anger came, not just about his letter to Jaehwan but all five of the letters. He’d hurt people, one of whom meant a lot to him. And even though he’d never intended the letters to be sent, he’d still written them with resent and bitterness in his heart. The news had already spread quickly around the school, and he’d seen the way people were looking at him. He didn’t want to be the kind of person that wrote hateful letters just to make people feel bad. Maybe he was a petty person, but he wasn’t a mean person. He knew he had to make this right.

He started by writing back to Jaehwan, apologising profusely firstly for the misunderstanding, and secondly for the fact the letter had been sent in the first place. He accepted the invitation to meet face to face, providing a phone number for him to be contacted on (because really, who writes letters anymore?), and concluding by thanking his former boss for being so understanding. He immediately went to post the letter, desperate to lift some of the guilt off his shoulders, and indeed did feel more relieved as soon as the envelope fell into the mail slot. Now he just had another four people to make up with, and he knew that one of them was going to be considerably trickier than the others.

 

**—✦—**

 

He decided to start with the scariest, and it was by this reasoning that he ended up nervously loitering outside Mr Hwang’s office after school. He still wasn’t sure exactly what he planned to say, especially since he still didn’t exactly like the dude. But he was also aware of the fact that Mr Hwang could easily have reported him, passed the letter onto the head as targeted hate mail, and Jihoon would probably have been expelled. And as bad a punishment as working with Woojin is, expulsion would have been worse. Marginally.

He was still working up the courage to actually knock on the door when it swung open and the man himself appeared in the doorway, long black jacket on and a large bag slung over his shoulder.

“Oh,” he stopped short, his expression momentarily caught off-guard before he switched back to teacher mode and sets his features into a frown. “Jihoon. I was just heading home,” he said, tone unreadable as usual. It had always been impossible to tell if he was proud or annoyed with you, except with Jihoon it was more often the latter.

“Um,” Jihoon faltered, not sure what to say now. “Sorry. I guess I can come back another time.”

Mr Hwang’s eyes bore into him, with a gaze that could probably cut diamonds. “Is it about the letter?”

Jihoon stared. How was this man so good at knowing what you were thinking, when he himself was an utterly closed book?

“I’ll take that as a yes,” his teacher said. Then he stepped back, pushing his office door wider open. “Come in.”

Completely unsure of what was going to happen next, Jihoon hesitated before doing as he was told. Maybe this was where Mr Hwang would tell him that the letter had already been passed onto the head, and appropriate sanctions would be arranged following the completion of the biology project. The worst of both worlds, Jihoon thought.

Once inside the office, adrenaline finally took over from nerves. “I just wanted to say sorry about the letter,” Jihoon said, and now he couldn’t stop. “I wrote it nearly three years ago. I was just really angry because I’d worked so hard for that exam. I wanted to show you I could do it, I revised so hard, and those stupid boys in front of me passing notes just ruined it all. It wasn’t even your fault, although maybe you could have listened to my side of the story, but anyway it still wasn’t _entirely_ your fault. And also the letter was never meant to be sent, I know it’s really rude and disrespectful of me, so I would understand if you want to take further action”-

“Okay,” Mr Hwang said, cutting off Jihoon’s rambling with one word and a hand held up. “That’s enough of that. Jihoon, I’m not angry about the letter.”

Jihoon blinked. “You’re not?”

Mr Hwang smiled, a reaction that Jihoon had never managed to elicit from him before. “No. In fact, I knew all along it wasn’t you passing that note. Those boys have been caught for cheating before, and I’d been watching them do it for most of the exam.”

With that, Jihoon’s shock quickly turned into annoyance. “So why did you embarrass me in front of all those people? Why did you discount my paper, make me come second in the year?”

Mr Hwang looked at him for a long second. “Because I know people like you, Jihoon. You’re motivated by feeling wronged, by feeling like you have something to prove. I did actually mark the questions you’d already done, and it was flawless. An easy A, approaching 100%. So if you’d got that grade, in one of your worst subjects, and placed first in your freshman year, what would you have had left to motivate you?”

Jihoon tried to answer, but no words would come now. As much as he wanted to be infuriated, his teacher was right. If Jihoon had breezed an A in freshman biology, he knew he wouldn’t have even tried in sophomore year. He would have assumed the A was going to come to him magically. And that may well have been his downfall.

“But now,” Mr Hwang continued, seeing the change in Jihoon’s expression, “you’re finally performing at that same level again. Because you’ve had three years of thinking I hated you, and feeling like you had something to prove to me, which made you work even harder. So actually, that letter was just confirmation that everything I’d done had worked.”

Jihoon wasn’t sure he was hearing this right. “So, you don’t actually hate me?”

Mr Hwang laughed. “Of course not. Biology isn’t your strongest point, but you work damn hard, and that’s all that ever matters to me. Park Woojin, on the other hand, thinks that having a natural gift for a subject means you don’t have to try. So I paired you together in the hope you can teach him what real hard work is.”

Dumbfounded by disbelief, Jihoon leant back against the door. “That’s so smart,” he mumbled, accidentally loud enough for his teacher to hear.

“I know,” Mr Hwang said, eyes sparkling now, something Jihoon had never seen them do before. “But pretend we didn’t have this conversation. I want you to do well this year, so I’ll still be acting like I hate you. You know, just for the motivation.”

Jihoon couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you, Mr Hwang,” he said sincerely.

“Please,” his teacher said. “That’s so formal. Call me Minhyun. Now if you don’t mind, I have a pizza at home with my name on it. And I believe you have a project to be working on.”

 

**—✦—**

 

Jihoon became so swept up with schoolwork that he forgot about the letters for a couple of weeks, aside from the one day he was passing a gift shop and spotted a cute fridge magnet in the shape of a sandcastle. He’d bought it and approached Guanlin in school the next day with the gift in outstretched hands like a peace offering. Guanlin had smiled a wide gummy smile and wholeheartedly accepted Jihoon’s apologies, laughing as he’d revealed the stories of all five letters. Ever since then Guanlin had taken to hanging out with him and Jinyoung, and Jihoon was really glad to have gained him as a friend.

After making amends with three recipients, the guilt monster in his mind was somewhat placated, and he was able to focus on his studies again. The project was going reasonably well, despite frustratingly slow progress that resulted from Jihoon and Woojin only having three overlapping free periods per week, and neither of them wanting to offer a meet up outside of school hours. But true to Minhyun’s wishes, Jihoon was doing his best to force hard work out of Woojin, who had initially been very reluctant to pick up a textbook, but after persistent prompting was even doing extra reading beyond the required texts. Jihoon was aware this was probably just out of a desire to be better than him, to show off even, but that was fine. As long as the work got done and they didn’t murder each other, he could call it a success.

But it wasn’t long before the letters came to the forefront of his mind once more, and he knew he couldn’t avoid the most dreaded confrontation for much longer. The only problem was working out how and when to approach Daehwi, because he knew the conversation they needed to have had to be away from prying ears and possible interruptions.

Luckily the universe was kind enough, or maybe cruel enough, he wasn’t quite sure, to give him the opportunity unexpectedly one day. A huge storm hit their town, sending torrential rain and gale force winds driving against the students as they tried to make it out of school at the end of the day. Jihoon had run faster than he knew possible, after checking Seongwu was staying behind for astronomy club, and quickly taken shelter in the safety of his car. He fired up the heater and held his cold hands over the vents, thinking about how nice it would be to get home and lie in bed watching TV.

As he drove, finding it tricky to see the road in front of him even with the wipers on full speed, he looked smugly at all the unlucky people who’d been stuck walking in the rain. One of them didn’t even have a coat, in fact he was wearing a t-shirt-

Jihoon quickly realised he was looking at Daehwi, arms tucked tightly into his chest as if that could fight the inevitable hypothermia that was probably developing right that second.

He knew what he had to do, despite how much he didn’t want to do it. He pulled the car over just a few feet in front of Daehwi and wound the window down.

“What the hell, Daehwi?” he demanded, watching the boy’s face turn from apprehension over talking to a stranger in a car, into detachment once he realised who the stranger was. He didn’t reply for a second, probably because they hadn’t spoken a word to each other since the awkward confrontation about the letter, and he wasn’t sure how to.

“It was sunny when I left the house,” he eventually settled on, an indignant expression that Jihoon knew all too well crossing his face.

“Get in,” Jihoon said, gesturing towards his passenger seat, sending Daehwi immediately onto the defensive.

“It’s okay,” he said quickly. “My house isn’t far away. The weather isn’t even that bad, I’m fine.”

A clap of lightning punctuated Daehwi’s sentence in a way he probably really didn’t want it to.

“You live on the other side of town, Daehwi,” Jihoon sighed. “You’re going to catch your death if you stay out here any longer. Get in the car.”

He hesitated again, but the desire for warmth and shelter from the pouring rain eventually overcame his desire to stay away from Jihoon, and he opened the car door and climbed in.

“Thank you,” he mumbled as Jihoon pulled the car away from the kerb and resumed driving.

“There’s a towel on the back seat if you want it,” Jihoon said, and Daehwi reached for it. They drove in silence for a while, more tense than awkward, the complications between them hanging heavily in the air. Despite the fact he didn’t want to make this any worse than it already was, Jihoon knew this was his chance to fix this.

“So, I wanted to talk about the letter,” he started, and Daehwi sighed.

“If you’re going to do this, you can stop the car and I’ll walk.”

Jihoon paused, wanting to approach the situation in the best possible way. “Please, just let me explain. If you’re still upset at the end, we can drive the rest of the way in silence, I promise.”

Daehwi didn’t speak this time, which Jihoon took as permission to continue.

“I wrote that letter back in May, right after you ended it, when I was really upset and hurt. I didn’t mean any of things I wrote about you, it was just out of spite. Ever since then I’ve been really happy being friends, and it kills me to think I might have ruined that.”

Daehwi frowned across at him. “If you wrote it five months ago, and didn’t mean it, why would you send it? Just to make me feel like shit?”

The words pierced Jihoon’s heart, echoing the inner voice that had been persistently telling him how much he’d hurt Daehwi ever since they broke up. “I didn’t send it,” he whispered, dropping his voice. “My brother did, by accident. I would never have intentionally made you read that.

Daehwi continued to look sceptical. “Even if that’s true, you should have told me how you felt at the time,” he sighed. “Why did you hide it if you got over it? Are you certain you don’t still have feelings for me?”

Jihoon knew he had approximately one second to choose a reply, because any longer and Daehwi would know the truth. “I’m certain,” he said. “I just miss having you as a friend right now.” That much was true, at least. “I’m really sorry this happened.”

A silence fell again for approximately the next half a mile, and Jihoon was terrified that his apology wouldn’t be accepted, and the guilt of breaking Daehwi’s heart would weigh down on him forever.

But eventually, he spoke. “Okay. I believe you,” he said, and Jihoon knew he wasn’t lying. “And I forgive you. And, if you’d come to me all those months ago and told me how hurt you were, I’d have probably told you that I was sorry, because that was never my intention. I just knew that with how much I’ll have to study this year to get into medical school, our relationship would have suffered anyway. So I knew it was better for us to just be friends, rather than breaking up on bad terms once I stopped paying as much attention to you.”

Jihoon nodded. “I understand that now,” he said. “In fact I understood that since about three days after we broke up. I was just in a bad place when I wrote that letter, and it never should have ended up in your hands. I am really sorry.”

“Hey,” Daehwi said, slapping him gently on the arm and smiling slightly. “I said you’re forgiven, didn’t I? Let’s just forget about it.”

Jihoon’s heart lifted with the relief, glad that the conversation had ended well and not in awkwardness.

“So how long have you been dating Park Woojin?”

_Wait, what?_

“Woojin?” he muttered faintly, his brain too busy trying to process what Daehwi had said to think of anything else. _I must have misheard him,_ he thought, _that can’t be right._ “Dating?”

Daehwi nodded earnestly. “Yeah. I’ve actually been dying to know all about it for ages, but I had to give you the silent treatment and all that. But now we’re friends again, you need to catch me up.”

No, this still wasn’t computing. “You think I’m dating Park Woojin?”

Daehwi looked a little taken aback. “Well you are, aren’t you?”

Jihoon slammed on the brakes as noticed a light changing to red at the very last second. “No,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “We hate each other. Why would I ever date him.”

Daehwi shrugged. “I did think it was a little weird. But I assume you’d both finally noticed all that sexual tension between you and decided to”-

“Sexual tension?” Jihoon almost yelled, as the light changed back to green and the driver behind him beeped their horn.

“Well yeah,” Daehwi continued, still seeming confused by Jihoon’s strange reaction. “And anyway if you’re not dating, why do you spend so much time together?”

“We’re doing a biology project,” Jihoon said in a strained voice, unable to handle much more of this conversation. The boy he still had a crush on was here talking to him about why he wasn’t dating his biggest enemy. Luckily they were only a few blocks away from Daehwi’s house.

Daehwi sighed. “Well that’s disappointing,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to hearing all the details for so long.” Then he frowned. “Wait, biology project? Are you in Mr Hwang’s class?”

Jihoon side eyed him. “Yeah. Why?”

Daehwi’s mouth opened in a gasp. “Oh my God okay, you won’t believe this. Sungwoon and I stayed behind after school to study, so we were the only ones in the library, and we were right in the back so anyone who walked in wouldn’t have been able to see us, okay? So these two people come in and are whispering, which was weird right, since as far as they knew they were alone. Well they’re whispering, and I start listening in, and I realise they’re talking about Mr Hwang. They were saying how he has favourites in the class and treats them better than they others, so they wanted to try and come first with their project, so that he would treat them that way too. They were planning to cheat, Jihoon.”

Jihoon stopped the car outside Daehwi’s house, but he didn’t move to get out. “Cheat?” he repeated, not wanting to believe what he was hearing.

“Yeah,” Daehwi confirmed. “They were planning to pay someone to write it for them, even the speech that goes along with it. They’re not doing any of it themselves.”

Jihoon stared, feeling anger build up inside him. He’d spent his entire school career working his ass off for his grades, missing out on fun things with his friends if there was an important test coming up. This meant that he couldn’t stand cheaters.

“Well,” he said slowly, realising this may have just given him an unexpected way to get Woojin working with him. “I’ll just have to make sure they don’t get away with it, won’t I?”

Daehwi grinned. “Sounds evil. I like it.” He glanced towards his house. “Well, I’d better get inside, my mum will be worrying about me in this weather. Especially since I left the house in a t-shirt.” He flashed Jihoon a smile as he took hold of the door handle. “Thanks again for the lift. And it’s a shame you’re not dating Park Woojin. You guys make a good couple.”

Then he was gone, darting through the rain, before Jihoon even had time to process that last comment.

 

**—✦—**

 

As soon as he next found himself in the library with Woojin he relayed Daehwi’s story, and got exactly the reaction he wanted. He knew, as a fellow overachiever, Woojin would be just as horrified as he’d been.

“Who was it?” he whispered, glancing around the library as if the culprits themselves would be standing right next to them.

Jihoon shrugged. “Daehwi only heard their voices, and he doesn’t know who else is in our class. I bet it’s Haknyeon and Sunwoo though.”

Woojin nodded his agreement. “Well you know what this means, Park Jihoon?”

Jihoon looked at him with slight alarm. He didn’t know what this meant.

“We have a common enemy now. And despite our differences, we have to work together to make sure we’re not defeated by the evil in our class.”

“You sound like you’re reading that off a Game of Thrones script.”

“Whatever. Let’s just make this project really good, okay?”

Jihoon nodded. “Okay. As long as you remember that I still hate you.”

Woojin twisted his face into a sneer, exposing his snaggletooth on the left. “Ditto.”

And as it happened, this arrangement worked well, for a while at least. Because as much as they hated each other, they hated the thought of letting cheaters come top of their class even more. So they put their all into the work, even making arrangements to see each other outside of school for the sake of the project.

It was always worst when Woojin came round to his, mostly because Seongwu was there and they spent most of their time talking about dance and other things Jihoon didn’t care about. Sometimes even their mum would be home, having recently changed her shifts to be home in the evenings more often, and unfortunately she’d always liked Woojin. Which left Jihoon, an Woojin hater, the odd one out.

Luckily he was always able to use the “Sorry we have work to get done” card in order to excuse them to the dining room, where there was fortunately significantly less Woojin appreciation going on.

“I think it’ll be good if we make this respiration section bigger,” Woojin proposed one day, reaching for the mouse and dragging the picture before Jihoon could even say anything.

“I don’t think we need to,” Jihoon protested. “We’re in senior year. Everyone knows what respiration is. It doesn’t need to be spelt out for them in letters that big.”

Woojin continued moving and resizing the picture without paying any attention to what Jihoon had said. “It’s the basis for our whole presentation though. It needs to be big so people understand what we’re talking about.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes. “No, it doesn’t. We’ll just mention it and briefly go over it. But it doesn’t need to be even bigger than the title.”

As Woojin stubbornly carried on with his own idea, Jihoon suddenly felt frustrated, and leant across to grab for the mouse. Woojin tried to move it away too quickly, and as it slipped from his grip their hands collided. Jihoon couldn’t understand why his brain was taking so long to catch up with the fact he was pretty much holding Woojin’s hand right now, and that their faces were mere inches apart due to Jihoon’s reach for the mouse, and was it really necessary for his brain to make him _stare_ at Woojin for so long, taking note of the tiny mole above his lip that he’d never seen before and the smooth curve of his nose and the incredible almond shape of his eyes.

They both recoiled at the same time, Jihoon hurriedly sitting back in his chair.

“You know what, you’re right,” Woojin said hastily. “Maybe it doesn’t need to be quite that big.”

And every day when Woojin left, Jihoon would go and complain about him to Seongwu who would always roll his eyes and say “You’re my brother, he’s my friend, I’m not taking sides,” and that would be that.

It seemed that the more their project took shape, the more both of them were striving for perfection, but the only trouble was that meant different things for each of them. Woojin, the one with the mathematical mind, wanted something very clean and plain and easy to understand. He didn’t want to litter their presentation with what he deemed ‘unnecessary’ information. Jihoon, however, with his eye for appearance and constructing things to look striking and appealing, couldn’t stand the bland straight lines of text that Woojin was creating. He wanted it vibrant, interesting, with plenty of extra little facts in there that they’d picked up during their reading. And it was this painfully obvious difference that reminded them why they’d never got on in the first place.

One Tuesday in November Woojin was round at his house and they were back to working in silence, now in a situation where they were basically making two separate projects just to try and avoid the arguments. As Jihoon studied his laptop screen thinking how best to arrange the new poster he was making, he could see out of his peripheral vision that Woojin was not looking at his screen. In fact, he was maybe even looking at Jihoon.

Jihoon kept working, assuming Woojin was just thinking and his eyes had just landed nowhere in particular. But Woojin’s gaze didn’t shift. Jihoon remembered reading that if you want to test if someone is staring at you, you should do something and see if they mirror it. He yawned. Woojin yawned too.

Now Jihoon was slightly scared. They hadn’t been on great terms recently, not that their terms were ever much more than average, but it had got worse. Was Woojin working up to say something to him, that he hated all of Jihoon’s ideas, or maybe that they couldn’t even work together anymore?

Unable to handle the tension, his eyes flitted up to meet Woojin’s. Their gaze met for a split second, long enough to confirm Woojin was definitely looking at him, before the other boy averted his eyes towards a painting of a sheep on the wall.

 _Huh. Kinda weird,_ Jihoon thought.

It was almost time for Woojin to leave when Jihoon’s mother walked in.

“Woojin, honey, I’m sorry but your parents are tied up at work and can’t come get you. They’ve asked if you can stay here for tonight. I’m sure Jihoon would be happy to share his bed though.”

_Oh hell no._

“Mum, what about Jisung’s room? Or the sofa, or literally even the floor.”

His mother glared at him. “Don’t be so rude, Jihoon. Jisung’s room is locked because he’s not here, and I’m not having any guest in my house sleep on the floor.”

Nothing he, or Woojin, who was trying to be a lot more polite but still clearly hated the idea, said could change his mother’s mind. Jihoon even had to lend Woojin pyjamas and a toothbrush, something he never thought he would do, and when they finally climbed into bed they automatically lay at polar ends of the mattress, facing away from each other. They exchanged no words except “Shall I turn the light out?” “Yeah”, and after Jihoon had done just that he lay there staring at his wall for what felt like hours. He definitely wasn’t listening to Woojin’s breathing, or noticing the way he kept shifting the duvet slightly towards himself, or obsessively overthinking the fact that he was in bed with Park Woojin right now. He pushed the thoughts out of his head, eager to get to sleep, but even when he did he kept drifting in and out, and every time he woke up he remembered. One time he’d even found that they’d both turned over in their sleep, so that they were facing each other, and Jihoon told himself it didn’t mean anything if he stared at Woojin for a while, imprinting the way his sharp angular features seemed to soften into round shapes while he slept into his mind.

 

**—✦—**

 

Jihoon was starting to find that the more time he spent with Woojin, the more he seemed to have a violent reaction to this, and the two parts of him were in constant conflict with each other. This meant that Jihoon and Woojin fought, relentlessly. They couldn’t spend more than 5 minutes at a time without disagreeing about something, and the fall-out from this was starting to get worse than before too. It evolved from frosty silence to full on death glares and muttered insults that were just loud enough for the other to hear.

And the project was suffering too. The deadline was getting closer and closer, their presentation set for just a week after Christmas break. But despite all the material they’d gathered, nothing felt coherent. The posters looked drastically different depending on who’d worked on them, there was no flow to the information, they hadn’t even begun to plan who was going to say what because that would involve talking to each other, which they were avoiding at all costs.

“He’s so irritating,” Jihoon would rant to Jisung, finally home from college after his first semester. He listened better than Seongwu did, and also had no connection to Woojin which made him more likely to take Jihoon’s side. So he was by far the best person to rant to. “The way he types. It’s so obnoxious, I think he presses extra hard just to annoy me.”

Jisung looked at him amusedly. “Jihoon”-

“And he does the stupidest thing with his mouth when he’s concentrating. It twists up and his tongue sticks out. He looks so dumb.”

Jisung smiled patiently and tried again. “Jihoon, I”-

“And sometimes he even breathes really loudly. Okay, I know that one sounds dumb. But it’s unnecessary for anyone to breath that loudly, I can hear it halfway across the room”-

“Jihoon,” Jisung said more forcibly, and Jihoon broke out of it, turning to look at his brother. “Have you considered,” he said slowly, his eyes watching Jihoon carefully, “that you might have feelings for Woojin?”

Jihoon blinked. “Feelings,” he repeated. Daehwi had already made that assumption once before, and now he had to hear it a second time?

Jisung sighed. “Jihoon, all you’ve spoken to me about since I got back three days ago is Woojin. I know you’ve never got on with him, but I’ve also never seen you this obsessed with telling me how much you hate him. It just seems like you might be a little in denial.”

“Ha,” Jihoon said, because he’d forgotten how to laugh. “I can assure you that the only feelings I have for Park Woojin are hatred feelings. You know, enemy feelings. Those.”

At that moment Seongwu walked into the room holding his laptop and a textbook. “Oh hey guys,” he said, jumping over the back of the sofa to join them. “What are we talking about?”

Jisung smiled rather pointedly at Jihoon. “Woojin.”

Seongwu rolled his eyes. “Again? Jihoon, when are you gonna stop talking about him and finally kiss him?”

Jisung burst out laughing as Jihoon shot his twin a death glare. “If you both would kindly stop insinuating that I have a crush on Park Woojin.”

Seongwu shrugged. “Stop acting like it then.”

And Jihoon decided that he would, except it wasn’t that easy. Woojin wouldn’t get out of his head no matter what he did. He’d sit down and try to concentrate on something else, but his brain would always come back to something mildly annoying that Woojin had done the other day and Jihoon would find himself quickly fixated on how Woojin’s eyes narrowed slightly when he read because he never wore his glasses when he should do, or how he scrunched his nose up whenever he didn’t understand something, or how he’d bite at his lip when he was thinking really hard. _How do I know what his lips look like from memory?_ Jihoon thought in despair. _Do I really spend that long looking at them?_

Christmas began to approach, which at least gave Jihoon some other things to think about that weren’t the W word. He threw himself into his studies for every subject except biology, but also took breaks for going out with Jinyoung, Daehwi and Guanlin. His brothers were both busy, Seongwu with dance practices and planning a Christmas party, and Jisung with exam revision and meeting up with friends, so Jihoon didn’t even have as much opportunity to rant as usual. Maybe that was for the best. The less he had That Boy on his mind, the better.

The day of Seongwu’s party arrived, and Jihoon had actually almost been looking forward to it. Seongwu threw good parties, where people actually had fun and went home without serious injuries, serious regrets, or a combination of both.

He helped his brothers decorate the house in the morning, with a warning from their mum that “if anyone climbs the Christmas tree there’ll be hell to pay”, before she packed a bag and went off to a spa weekend with her friend.

Jihoon usually hated parties, but once Daehwi arrived closely followed by Jinyoung and Guanlin he was happier and could relax. They ate, drank, and no one climbed the Christmas tree. It was going well so far.

That was, until He walked in.

Jihoon heard him before he saw him, his booming laugh overpowering even the loud Christmas music that was playing through someone’s Bluetooth speaker. He whirled round to locate the source of the abhorrent sound, and spotted Woojin by the doorway talking to Seongwu. He quickly averted his gaze back to his friends, who carried on their conversation none the wiser. All he had to do was pretend he hadn’t seen him, and try and convince his brain of the same thing.

It didn’t work. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on literally anything that wasn’t Woojin, his mind kept wandering back and making him look around to make sure that the boy wasn’t anywhere near him. Or maybe to check if he was.

“So, are you having fun?” his brother’s voice came from behind him, and Jihoon turned to see Jisung smiling sympathetically.

“Sure,” Jihoon said, because he was. For as long as he wasn’t talking to Woojin, he was having fun.

“I see Woojin is here,” and Jihoon sighed, knowing you could always trust Jisung to say exactly what you didn’t want to hear.

“Oh, is he?” Jihoon muttered. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Jisung pulled a face at him. “Of course you didn’t.”

“Did you come over here for a reason?” Jihoon demanded, “or was it just to torment me?”

“Seongwu wants you,” he finally said, reaching over and grabbing crisps from the bowl in front of Jihoon and throwing them into his mouth. “He’s in the kitchen.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes. “And he couldn’t come to me?”

Jisung shrugged. “Guess not. Anyway, see you later. Enjoy the party.”

He watched Jisung go and rejoin his group of friends, his eyes landing on Daniel in particular. Daniel was so friendly, so hard working, and so incredibly beautiful. Jihoon had always had a devastating crush on him, much like every single other person in their school, but three years ago he’d started dating Jisung, which put every hope of acting on his crush out of the window. He’d almost written him a letter at one point, not a hate letter like the rest, but a love letter, expressing all the feelings he knew he could never voice aloud. But he knew too much was at risk if either he or Jisung ever found it, so he decided against it. He thought that maybe he should have decided against the other five letters he’d written as well.

He finally got up to go and find Seongwu, since his twin clearly didn’t have any plans to come and find him first. He pushed past the groups of people who were blocking up his living room, and eventually made it to the kitchen. His brother was indeed there, pouring drinks and topping up the snack bowls, and grinned when Jihoon walked in.

“What’s up bro?” he said cheerfully.

“Firstly, you’ve never called me bro before and I hope you never do it again,” Jihoon replied. “Secondly, you’re the one who asked for me.”

Seongwu stared at him a second. “Oh yeah, I did,” he said, still seemingly unsure. “I wanted to ask you if I should make cheese or pepperoni pizza.”

Jihoon glared at him. “You called me out here to ask me that?”

“It’s important.”

“Just cook them both.”

“Oh my God. You’re so smart.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes before turning to walk out of the kitchen, but he found the doorway blocked by the last person he wanted to see. Woojin’s dumb face was right there in front of him.

“Hi Woojin!” Seongwu greeted him brightly. “I was just going to cook some pizza.”

“Uh, cool,” Woojin said with a frown. “But Jisung said you wanted to see me”-

“Shh, never mind about that,” Seongwu interrupted. Then his eyes moved above their head, and his mouth opened in feigned surprise. “Guys you’ll never guess what’s above you.”

Jihoon knew his brother and probably could have guessed, but that didn’t stop him wanting to murder Seongwu with his bare hands when he looked up and saw a familiar bunch of green leaves and white berries. Mistletoe.

“Very funny,” Jihoon said, glaring at his twin.

“I’m serious,” Seongwu said, looking at his very seriously. “It’s bad luck if you don’t do it. And also you’ll have to do a dare of my choice.”

Woojin scoffed. “Okay, we’ll take the dare.”

“I dare you to kiss under the mistletoe.”

Jihoon sighed deeply. He didn’t know where his brothers had got this idea he had any kind of feelings for Park Woojin, but he was beginning to get tired of it. He was doing everything he could to get this boy out of his mind, and here they were trying to push him further in. He was more than ready to elbow past the boy and go upstairs to his room and forget any of this happened until Woojin said “Okay” and his world rocked on its axis.

“What?” he said, unable to believe he’d heard that right.

Woojin shrugged. “It’s just a bit of fun, right? I don’t see why we shouldn’t.”

_Uh, maybe because we’ve been sworn enemies for the last six years?_

Then Jihoon realised. Woojin was challenging him. He’d worked out that if he was the one who took control of this situation, and Jihoon was the one who bailed out, then Woojin would have the upper hand. And he could never let that happen.

“Fine. Whatever,” he said. He could endure just one kiss, if it meant pushing Woojin down a peg.

But now they were staring at each other and it felt far too real. Jihoon still wanted to run, hide, drive every memory of Park Woojin out of his mind. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he leaned in and kissed him.

It was awful, truly terrible, how perfectly their lips fit together. Woojin’s mouth gave way to his in exactly the way he’d always expected it would. The kiss was brief but the seconds stretched out into decades as Jihoon took note of Woojin’s faint strawberry flavour. Then all of a sudden he broke away, leaving Jihoon’s head spinning and his lips wanting more.

“Happy now, Seongwu?” Woojin snapped. And just like that he turned on his heel and walked away, disappearing into a crowd of people as if nothing had happened.

Jihoon could hear Seongwu saying something, but his brain already had too many things to process for him to be able to listen. A hundred thoughts became a billion nerve impulses, all firing off in his head at once, completely dominated by the overwhelming realisation that he’d just kissed Woojin. And to his utter dismay, he’d actually _liked_ it.

 

**—✦—**

 

After the party Jihoon began to spiral. For every feeling he tried to repress, five more would jump up and dance mockingly in front of his eyes, reminding him of the truth that was no longer deniable. He’d somehow managed to develop a crush on Park Woojin.

Being off school for Christmas break was both a blessing and curse. It was good because he didn’t have to see Woojin and be confronted by his giant problem face to face. But it was bad because he didn’t have anything to distract him, no school work or outings with his friends to take his mind off things. So he was often left alone to stew in all the thoughts that he really didn’t want to be having.

And of course, Seongwu wouldn’t let it go either. He took every possible opportunity to remind Jihoon of the kiss, as well as how Jihoon had behaved afterwards (like someone who’d just been hit by a truck). Jihoon knew, had learnt a long time ago, that there was never any point in hiding anything from his twin. They knew each other too well for that. And he could see in Seongwu’s eyes that he’d worked out exactly how bad Jihoon’s situation was getting, and he was relishing every second of it.

He didn’t exchange a single word with Woojin for the whole holidays. He thought that he’d maybe get a text telling him what parts of the project still needed work, since their presentation was just a few weeks away and wasn’t quite finished yet. But he was too scared to text first, and Woojin was probably just trying to ignore him after the kiss. The shock of physical intimacy had probably made him hate Jihoon even more than he had before.

When the holidays were over and he finally had a chance to get out of his head and find something to distract himself, he thought he finally felt better. He didn’t even see Woojin for the first three days, and even though their presentation was in a week he decided he didn’t care. They could fail if that was what it took to be able to avoid a situation he never wanted to confront.

Unfortunately the text came on Wednesday night. It was short and blunt, but Woojin’s messages always were, that wasn’t new.

_we should get the project finished. meet in the library during our free tomorrow?_

Jihoon sighed deeply, alerting Seongwu’s attention immediately.

“Is it Woojin?” he asked instantly.

Jihoon glared at him. “None of your business.”

“Let me think about that,” Seongwu said, then immediately, “no, I’ve decided it is my business. Tell me what he said.”

“He just wants to work on the project.”

“Which project? The biology one, or the one that involves how much you want to kiss him again”-

Jihoon launched a cushion at his twin’s face to shut him up. “I’m sick of you.”

He was half hoping the feelings might have gone away, resolved themselves after a month without seeing Woojin. He would walk into the library, see Woojin, and feel nothing but the same loathing and enmity he always had. If he believed it hard enough, maybe it would happen.

As soon as his eyes fell on Woojin, all hope went out of the window. His stomach flipped itself upside down, his heart fluttered in a way he really didn’t want it to, and all he could think about was how it had felt to kiss him.

He walked over to Woojin’s table, maintaining a calm expression and pretending that his thoughts weren’t in complete turmoil right now.

“Hey,” Woojin greeted him flatly.

Jihoon took the seat next to him in silence. “Hi.”

It had never felt this awkward between them, even when their arguing was at its worst. They worked on dividing up parts for their presentation, finishing the posters and printing them off, creating handouts to give to the class. It was the most they’d ever talked, yet the heaviest the tension had ever been. It was almost like all the complicated dynamics in their relationship had been stripped away, leaving two strangers who didn’t know how to act around each other. And Jihoon couldn’t bear it.

As soon as the project was finished, and they’d arranged to meet in the morning of their presentation to practice once more before the real thing, Jihoon walked as quickly from the library as he could. He kept walking, straight out of the school, not caring that he would miss his afternoon lessons. He didn’t even know where he was going, but he knew he had to clear his mind, let it disconnect from his heart for a while.

Without noticing he ended up in the park near his house, which was deserted at this time of day with all the kids still in school, so he sat on the swings to stare at the ground. He blamed Woojin, for the push and pull of the last six years and bringing out the competitive side of him. He blamed Jisung, for sending the letters and bringing this feud into the open instead of buried in Jihoon’s mind where it belonged. He blamed Seongwu, for making them kiss and ruining the careful balance they had, bringing their relationship crashing down to the ground. But most of all he blamed himself, for the fact he was so petty he’d created this huge issue for himself over nothing but a slice of pizza.

He had no idea what time it was when he finally left the park, he just knew the sun was starting to dip behind the trees which meant to kids would be arriving soon. So he headed home, still with no idea what he was going to do, the weight of yet another unrequited crush hanging heavily on his shoulders.

Except this wasn’t like the others. Daehwi was leftover feelings from a broken relationship, and Daniel was wanting something he could never have, but there was something different about Woojin. Something that made this even worse, and made his heart ache even more.

 

**—✦—**

 

The day of the presentation arrived, after Jihoon had wallowed in his misery for several days and Seongwu had kept him supplied with ice cream and a shoulder to cry on. In the end, Jihoon had started to look forward it just to get it over with. That meant he could go back to ignoring Woojin as much as possible, spending time with his friends, and trying to take his mind off the past few months. He’d even happily go back to his crush on Daehwi if it meant he could get rid of his current feelings.

He met with Woojin in the morning as planned, and they completed an average but lacklustre run-through of their presentation, the lifeless atmosphere hanging over their heads like a dark cloud. Jihoon slid away afterwards to seek company with Jinyoung and Guanlin, happy to sit there while they chatted because then at least he wasn’t alone with his thoughts. Because at this point, he didn’t know if he could be sure they wouldn’t crush him.

When he arrived in his biology class Mr Hwang gave him an encouraging smile, but he could only return it weakly. On top of everything else, he was now being hit by the nerves of presenting in front of his class. He really couldn’t wait for this to be over.

When their turn was announced he got up, stood at the front facing the room of his peers, and knew full well what he was meant to be saying. But his brain had other ideas.

It was painful, how the minutes dragged by. Everything he said sounded boring, monotone, strained. His heart banged against his ribcage, desperate to snap out of this and save himself, but it was like someone had cut every connection in is brain. He barely looked up from the floor, forgetting all the extra points he’d been told to make, stuttering over his words. Woojin was unusually bright and upbeat, maybe trying to compensate for Jihoon’s floundering, but it felt too forced. Eventually they trailed off, realising there was nothing either of them could do to fix this.

“Well, thank you boys,” Mr Hwang said, sounding just as disappointed as Jihoon knew he would be. “Please take your seats.”

Jihoon couldn’t watch the rest of the presentations, couldn’t even bring himself to look in Woojin or Mr Hwang’s direction. He’d let them both down, just another two people who he’d disappointed, a list which was getting longer than he cared to think about. If he wasn’t so wrapped up in himself, and things that he felt he deserved, none of this would have happened.

He left as quickly as possible after the class ended, glad it was his last lesson of the day so he get himself out of there before he cried in front of everyone. It wasn’t until he reached the front doors and started to walk towards the gates that he realised someone was behind him. Assuming it was just someone else leaving school at the same time as him he carried on walking, until an all too familiar voice said his name.

“Jihoon.”

He stopped in his tracks and whirled around, his heart plummeting through the floor when he saw Woojin looking back at him.

He was silent, unable to think of anything to say, so Woojin spoke again. “What the hell happened up there?”

Jihoon pressed his lips together, worried that he might break down if he tried to speak. “I don’t know,” he managed to whisper. “I’m sorry.”

He turned and carried on walking, but Woojin quickly closed the distance between them and walked alongside him.

“Hey,” he said, nudging Jihoon’s arm. “That wasn’t the cocky, overconfident, annoying Jihoon that I know. So I can tell something is wrong. And you might have just ruined my GPA so you should probably explain.”

Jihoon side-eyed him. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you with my mental breakdown.”

“You’re unbearable, you know that?” Woojin said, quickening his pace to match Jihoon’s increasing speed. “We argue when we try and work together, you get moody when I leave you alone, and now you don’t want me to ask if you’re okay. So what is it that you want?”

Jihoon ignored that question, because there was no way he could tell Woojin the answer. “We should never have been paired together,” he mumbled. “It clearly didn’t work out.”

“It could have done,” Woojin said, his voice small and sad, making Jihoon stop and look at him.

“Could have done?” he looked at him incredulously. “We hate each other, Woojin, we always have. You’ve made that painfully obvious recently, especially since that stupid kiss, and I get it, okay? We’re really different people, we’ll never fully get on, we can never be anything except enemies. Now can we please drop it, before it gets any worse.”

He was terrified of saying too much, so he quickly turned and walked away.

“Jihoon,” Woojin called after him, but unable to bring himself to turn around and see the expression on the other boy’s face, he stepped out into the road.

Everything after that happened so fast. He heard the car before he saw it, a squeal of brakes making him clench his eyes shut on instinct. That’s when he felt a strong pair of hands push him, _hard_ , and he fell forward before everything went black.

 

**—✦—**

 

Jihoon had woken up just before the paramedics arrived, only briefly knocked out by banging his head on the pavement. Woojin was still unconscious when Jihoon ran to his side, having taken the full impact of the car, but the paramedics reported that he had a strong pulse and no obvious injuries. It seemed the car had slowed down enough to avoid doing too much damage, but they wanted to take him to hospital and do scans to rule out anything more serious.

Woojin came round in the ambulance, initially confused and trying to pull his oxygen mask off, but then he must have remembered because he relaxed and lay back. He was able to tell them his name, the date, and whereabouts he was in pain. The paramedic had smiled at Jihoon and said “Your friend is doing well.” He’d just smiled back.

The nurses checked Jihoon over when they arrived at the hospital, just to make sure he hadn’t injured himself, but all he wanted was to be by Woojin’s side. As soon as they gave him the all clear he went looking for him, but found that he was still in x-ray, so he sat and waited. He didn’t even question why he was there. He knew he couldn’t be anywhere else.

The nurse came to fetch him once Woojin was brought back, and he was relieved the find the boy sitting up in bed and eating when he arrived in his room.

“The food here isn’t bad, you know,” Woojin said through a mouthful of rice.

Jihoon sighed. “You scared the shit out of me, I hope you know that.”

Woojin swallowed the rice and grinned at him. “I know. But I also saved your ass.”

“You did. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how I can ever repay something like that. But thank you.”

Woojin looked him seriously in the eye for a second, before looking back down at his food. “Guess I’m just too nice for my own good.”

Jihoon pulled up a chair and sat down, without really thinking about what he was doing until Woojin shot him an amused expression.

“So you’re sticking around then? Despite the fact we’ll never be anything but enemies?”

Jihoon winced, immediately regretting everything he’d said to Woojin just before the accident. “Yeah, sorry about that. Guess I was just wounded by that disaster of a presentation.”

Woojin shrugged. “It’s cool.”

There was a few seconds of silence while Woojin ate some more rice before Jihoon spoke.

“So how bad is it?”

“They said it could have been a lot worse,” Woojin said. “I fractured a couple of ribs, which will hurt like a bitch until they heal. But apart from some other cuts and bruises, I’m fine. I got off pretty light.”

Jihoon nodded, feeling increasingly like these injuries were entirely his own fault, as well as feeling confused as to why Woojin would do something for him that people usually only did for their loved ones.

“Well you have to heal quickly, okay?” Jihoon said quietly. “Coming top of the class won’t feel nearly as satisfying if you end up missing most of the school year.”

Woojin grinned again, this time wider so it exposed his snaggletooth. “You think you’re coming top of the class after that presentation you did this morning?”

“Shut up. I’m trying to say I want you to get better soon.”

“That almost sounds like concern, Park Jihoon.”

“Must be the medication. It’s giving you delusions.”

Woojin wasn’t in hospital for long, the doctors discharging him with instruction to rest, apply ice to his fractures, and take painkillers regularly. Jihoon found himself going round to Woojin’s house every day after school, without either of them arranging it, to bring him anything he needed from the shops, to give him copies of notes from the lessons they shared, to tell him that Haknyeon and Sunwoo had indeed come top of their biology class, much to both of their annoyances. Jihoon tried to convince himself, foolishly, that he was only doing it out of moral obligation to repay Woojin for what he’d done. But the fact his heart beat faster when Woojin laughed, and then sunk whenever he’d hold his ribs and wince in pain, made him realise his feelings weren’t going anywhere soon. And he decided that was fine. Because they were on speaking terms again, even having pleasant interactions for the first time in their lives, and that was enough to lift Jihoon’s previous mood dramatically. Sometimes Woojin would even say something bordering on flirty, their eye contact would linger just a fraction longer than was friendly, he’d smile softly whenever Jihoon went to fetch him a glass of water or ice pack or blanket. But then he’d quickly say something insulting, as if he’d accidentally been nicer than he intended, and Jihoon just couldn’t work him out.

 

**—✦—**

 

“Your handwriting is so shit, I hope you know that.”

Jihoon was round at Woojin’s house after school as usual, and Woojin was copying out Jihoon’s algebra notes.

“Don’t use my notes then, bitch.”

“What word is this meant to be?”

Jihoon peered over at where Woojin was pointing. “That’s a number.”

“What the fuck, Jihoon.”

“I have to write quickly, okay?” Jihoon sighed. “I’d usually only copy about half of what Miss Kwon says, but because I’m doing it for your annoying ass, I try to write down everything.”

Woojin looked at him, and there was that small smile again that usually meant he was touched. Then it was gone, and he rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to bother with that. I’m better at algebra than you anyway.”

Jihoon didn’t respond, going back to his English homework while Woojin worked on the notes.

“Jihoonie,” Woojin said, and Jihoon didn’t look up, having learnt by now that Woojin only ever added the cutesy ending to his name if he wanted something.

“Jihoon,” Woojin repeated, still not earning a reaction from Jihoon, aside from the little one in the back of his head that was telling him his name sounded really nice in Woojin’s voice.

“Yah, Park Jihoon,” Woojin said for a third time, now demanding attention. Jihoon finally looked up, feigning an innocent expression.

“Yes sir?”

Woojin glared at him. “I’m out of paper. Can you fetch some more from my room? It’s on the desk.”

Jihoon stood up and bowed exaggeratedly. “Right away, your majesty.”

Woojin threw him a middle finger and Jihoon returned the favour as he walked from the room and went up the stairs. None of Woojin’s family were home, thankfully, because he still wasn’t entirely sure of the house’s layout and didn’t want to accidentally walk into the wrong room.

Luckily he found Woojin’s bedroom without mishap, and easily located the cluttered desk that sat in the corner. He went over, pulled a wedge of writing paper from the pile, and was about to walk back out when something caught his eye.

It was the edge of something blue, sticking out of a box hidden at the back of the desk. Jihoon knew immediately what it was, and his suspicions were confirmed when he pulled on it and found himself holding the very same blue envelope that he’d written and addressed to Woojin all those years ago.

 _Why would he keep this,_ Jihoon thought to himself as he stared at it.  _It was a stupid, petty thing. If it was me I’d have thrown it straight away._

He turned it over to where the seal had been torn, pulled the letter itself out, and opened it up to read it. To his bewilderment the letter had been heavily annotated, some phrases underlined or highlighted, Woojin’s own handwriting down the margins accompanying his own. Jihoon’s head felt like it was spinning.

He’d made up his mind to go downstairs and ask Woojin why he’d kept the letter and drawn all over it, but as he lifted up the box lid to place the letter back, he froze. The box was full, almost to the brim, with blue envelopes, the one on top addressed to him. He reached out and sifted through the pile, checking all the other letters. Every single one was addressed to Park Jihoon.

Jihoon knew this was wrong, that he should hurry back downstairs and pretend he hadn’t seen anything. But his hands moved by themselves, picking up the envelopes one by one and tearing their seal. He discovered dates written on the back of each one, so he decided to start with the oldest at the bottom of the pile. It was dated 2012, and when he pulled the paper out he found it wasn’t a letter but rather a page that had been torn out of a diary, written in the bad handwriting you’d expect of an 11-year-old. Jihoon’s eyes landed on three sentences that had been underlined.

_It was pizza day today at school. I didn’t get any, but I did accidentally run into a boy who had a slice and he dropped it. That was funny._

Jihoon didn’t waste any time before moving onto the next envelope, this time dated 2015. Once again it was a page from a diary, and one section had been underlined.

_I realised today that Park Jihoon, the other boy who’s always at the top of my classes, is pizza boy from elementary school. I went back through my diaries and found what I’d written about him. Maybe that’s why he hates me so much. I kind of want to be his friend though. I hope we end up in the same high school._

Jihoon’s heart jumped into his mouth. Woojin had really written this over three years ago, at a time where Jihoon had thought their rivalry was escalating fast, but in reality Woojin hadn’t even understood why Jihoon hated him.

There were a couple more envelopes marked 2015 and a few marked 2016, which were also diary entries with parts about Jihoon underlined. They were usually Woojin complaining about him, another class that Jihoon had beat him to the top of, or something else annoying and petty that he’d done, but there was a melancholy tone to it all. But as Jihoon read, he was hit by the realisation that he himself had started all of this. He’d acted rudely towards Woojin first, he’d established their whole frosty rivalry. Woojin had just wanted to be his friend.

He found the first actual letter in spring 2017, at the end of sophomore year. This time there was no underlining, and Jihoon quickly discovered that was because the entire thing was about him.

 _Dear Jihoon,_ he began to read.

_Yes, I’m resorting to writing letters that I’ll never send like some lovesick teenager. Well, maybe that’s because I am a lovesick teenager. Because I’ve been trying to hide this for a while now, pretend that I hate you as much as you seem to hate me. But today you started dating Lee Daehwi, and I knew from the way that made me feel that my worst fears were true. I think I like you, Park Jihoon. And I know you don’t feel the same, so that’s why I’m writing this letter. I’ve also been going through all my old diaries, finding times where I mentioned you, and I’m going to put them all in envelopes too, which is cheesy but will help. Because our story is a complicated one, but I can only hope one day it will have a happy ending._

_From Woojin._

Jihoon stared at the words on the paper until they began to blur together, which he eventually realised was because he was crying. He didn’t even want to read anymore, but he couldn’t stop himself.

There were multiple letters from throughout junior year, describing every detail of Woojin’s growing crush and his anguish at the fact he knew his feelings weren’t reciprocated. There was plenty of reference to Jihoon and Daehwi’s relationship, things that Jihoon himself hadn’t even realised, but Woojin had clearly been watching closer than he had. There was a letter from the day they broke up, Woojin declaring himself the happiest he’d been in a long time despite the fact he knew he still didn’t have a chance.

The first letter from senior year was the same day Jihoon’s letters had been sent. He braced himself before tearing this one open.

_Dear Jihoon,_

_This is the first time I’ve had a letter back from you, although it certainly wasn’t the type of letter I wanted. Don’t worry though, it didn’t upset me. It actually made me smile, you must have written it ages ago right after that pizza incident. I didn’t know you even knew my name back then, so that’s cute. Although it does make me sad if this is really the reason you’ve hated me for so many years. I would apologise a hundred times, buy you a thousand pizzas, if it meant you would forgive me for being an idiot. Anyway, we got paired together in biology today, and you looked like you hated it as much as I thought you would. It’s okay though, once it’s over we don’t have to talk anymore. I just hope it doesn’t make things worse._

_From Woojin._

Jihoon began to feel sick. This was getting too real now, these letters written within his very recent memory, on days that he remembered all too well. To suddenly discover all the feelings that Woojin had been hiding for the entire time was devastating. There was a letter from just after the Christmas party, recounting the kiss in just as many details as Jihoon remembered it, with Woojin lamenting how that was as close to romance as he would ever get.

He picked up the most recent letter from the top of the pile, dated just over a week ago. He tore it open without even thinking, moving on autopilot now, because he didn’t know how to make his brain function anymore.

_Dear Jihoon,_

_So this is my third day out of hospital, and also the third day you’ve been coming round to take care of me. I know you’re only doing it because you feel bad, and it must be hard for you to have to spend time with me, so I want you to know I appreciate it. I’d be really lonely without you. And I don’t regret for a minute pushing you out of the way of that car. I wouldn’t have regretted it even if it had killed me (okay, dramatic bitch, I know). You mean a whole lot to me, Jihoon. I know I don’t mean anything to you, but that’s okay, I accepted it. You’ll always be the one I couldn’t have and I don’t mind that. Because I got to know you, and love you, and that’s all that matters to me._

_With all my heart, from Woojin._

Jihoon felt the ground shift underneath him, having to grab hold of the desk to stop his legs from giving way. As much as he needed to wipe his tears away and take some deep breaths, he couldn’t stop staring at the word ‘love’, and that small but significant addition to Woojin’s sign off at the end.

“What the hell are you doing up here?” Jihoon hadn’t hear the door open, and Woojin’s voice suddenly made him jump. “How long does it take to fetch some paper”-

He trailed off as his eyes landed on the letter in Jihoon’s hand, and the pile of torn blue envelopes on his desk and spilling onto the floor. His expression was utterly unreadable, and Jihoon was terrified about what he was going to do next.

But Woojin just smiled sadly, avoiding eye contact. “Okay. I guess you know now. You don’t need to say anything, I already got the message loud and clear. Please, just go.”

Jihoon kept staring, desperately wanting to say something to make this better, to spill out everything he’d been holding in his heart for the past few months.

But “Woojin” was he all he managed to choke out.

Woojin flinched. “Don’t look at me like that, Jihoon,” he said, his voice sounding like it was threatening to break. “People have unrequited crushes, okay, it’s a thing. You don’t need to treat me like some pathetic child. I’d really rather you just leave, and we can forget any of this ever happened.”

Jihoon did move, but not to leave. If he couldn’t form the words he wanted to say, he had to show Woojin how he felt. He closed the distance between them, reaching up to wrap a hand around the back of Woojin’s neck, just a few more centimetres until every negative feeling would be lifted away from him.

Woojin turned his face away. “Please don’t. Not if you don’t mean it.”

Jihoon almost faltered, almost pulled away, almost ran from the house like Woojin had asked him too.

But he didn’t.

“I do mean it,” he whispered. “I have feelings for you, Woojin. This whole time I thought we were enemies because we both wanted to be, because we’re so different, because we were always competing for the top of the class. I had no idea how you felt, that you’d ever wanted to be my friend, or that you liked me for so long. I’m so fucking sorry for how I treated you. I thought that kiss at Christmas ruined everything, because by then I knew that I had a crush on you, and I thought it was going to be the end of me. But reading those letters”- he paused because now Woojin was meeting his eyes again, and there were tears in them. “I hope you can forgive me.”

He barely had chance to finish his sentence before Woojin’s lips were on his, and it was everything the kiss at Christmas had been and more. Their arms wrapped around each other tightly as if they were afraid to ever let each other go again, so much so that Jihoon was sure they were about to fuse into one being. Woojin’s mouth moved desperately, searching for the response he’d been waiting so long for, and Jihoon gave it to him. It felt like the most perfect moment he could imagine.

Woojin eventually broke away, probably more for air than anything else, as he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. His cheeks were wet with tears, but more than that his face was lit up in the biggest smile Jihoon had ever seen.

“You better not be about to say sike,” Woojin said, and Jihoon couldn’t help but laugh.

“I promise I won’t.”

“Does this mean we don’t hate each other anymore? Because that was really fucking exhausting.”

Jihoon kissed him again, shorter and softer this time. “Does that answer your question?”

Woojin hummed, and Jihoon was sure he could feel the other boy’s heart beating against his own chest.

“That happy ending to our story I talked about? I think I just got it.”

**Author's Note:**

> me: publishes one fic  
> me: decides to enter a fic exchange  
> me: realises fic exchanges are a big commitment and a lot of pressure and panics slightly
> 
> BUT !!!! i finally got this done, it was a really creative idea and so much fun to write. i also loved writing for jai (although it did increase the pressure even further), i just hope they like it and i fulfilled the prompt well :D
> 
> also shoutout to the 2parkss moderators for being really responsive, helpful, and informative people. y'all are the realest <3


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